I Am My Father's Son
by countrybutterfly
Summary: A son's journey to the father whose history he is repeating. One shot


I Am My Father's Son

By: countrybutterfly

One shot.

Don't own One Tree Hill

She was older than me, and I was caught up in the fact that she was even paying attention to me, never mind that she was trying to go…there _with me._ I fell for it. I fell fast and I fell deep. I gave in. Without thinking, without thought to consequences I gave it to her. When I woke up she was still there, and for a second I thought it might turn out all right after all. I spent the next few weeks with my mind in heaven: she talked to me, came to my games, let me hold her, let me kiss her. Then she stopped.

She didn't tell me until I cornered her. She said she was sorry, but she didn't know how to tell me. It wasn't until then did I see that my actions _did_ have consequences. We went to her house that day and we talked. She didn't know what to do. I didn't what to do. We just talked. Somehow she made up her mind.

"_I want to have it, but I don't want to keep it…I can't be a mother not now."_

I didn't ask what about me, something told me not to. I just let her cry in my arms until she pushed me away, telling me to stay until she fell asleep. Surprisingly, she fell asleep quickly. I brought the blanket up to her and made my way home. Home. I realized the consequences and implications of this, I knew how this would change everything, change _me. _Yet the hardest thing to do would be to tell my mother.

All I know is that eighteen years ago, I was my mother's high school graduation present. She doesn't talk about it much, doesn't talk about how it happened, or why my father isn't around all she ever says is that things happen and everyone makes their choices in the moment that may not know if it was right until later. I thought about it all walking until I opened the door. I found her sitting in the living room, listening to an old album. I could always tell what mood my mom was in by the album she was playing. The music now told me that if I told her now my chance of death was relatively low.

"_Mom, there's something I need to tell you."_

I told her everything. How I fell in an unguarded moment. The news. That the baby was gonna be born, but not kept. I told how I felt, how I was scared, and I told her about the little voice in the back my wasn't sure if I could let the baby go. In that moment I remember why I loved my mother, why we got along so well. She didn't scream, yell, didn't scold, didn't tell me how disappointed she was in me. She stood up and held me.

But it was the next moment that took me away.

"_I'm your mother, and I've been there, I've been scared, and I didn't know what to do. But there is someone who could help you so much more."_

A day later I found myself on a bus headed to Savannah armed with an address and what my mother had finally told me after seventeen years. How my father had stood where I was standing and the choices he had made. How my sister was born. I had a sister. I had a sister who didn't know she had a brother. I had a _father_ who didn't know he had a son. A son, as my mother told me, who received quite a bit from his father: basketball, music, my eyes, my grades and apparently a premature need to impregnate a girl. I just sat there on the bus, thinking. I got off the bus, still thinking, I found a taxi and thought some more and standing in front of the door for nearly thirty minutes before the door opened my mind went blank.

"_I've noticed you've been standing here for a bit, is there something I can help you with?"_

Telling him he could help me, was also telling him I was his son. How was I supposed to do that? How was I supposed to send him through so much at once: anger, disbelief, maybe excitement…and inevitably disappointment when I told him what I had done, what had led me here.

"_Are you Jake Jagi…Jagielski?" I asked tripping over my own last name._

_A nod. A concerned look._

"_I h..h..ave something to tell you, and I know you don't know me…but this is hard for me to tell you this."_

_He was patient._

"_My mom sent me, she said you were someone I could go to…I am…My name is Addison Jagielski."_

I had said it. It was out in there, hanging, the…giant monkey in the room as Aunt Brooke liked to say. I wanted answers, I wanted help, but at the same time I wanted to just walk away, leave him out of this. I wish mom could have seen his face, it was almost as if he knew. She would have felt good. But I didn't know how to translate the expression on his face for me.

Then he cried. It wasn't substantial bawling, but it was more than subtle. Eventually the words came out. He said that he didn't know how to respond. He said that I should in. Through the night he asked question, but mostly he just stared at me. All I could do was just stared at him. I remember taking a deep breath.

"_Look there's something I need to tell you…why I came."_

I refused to look at him the whole time I told him. When I was done he left the room. There were a million things going through my head in those moments he left. But he came back, handing me a photo album and what appeared to be a journal. He told me that maybe they could help.

I stayed two more days. I met Jenny and Jake and I eventually had a better conversation. He asked me questions, some I couldn't answer some I could. I worked up the courage to ask him and Jenny to come back with me. I even told him what Aunt Haley would tell me often, about mom. How she would never show when she needed people, but she's been need him since she met him. He smiled, said it sounded like she had the same soul. But he said he couldn't come. I said I didn't want to leave.

"_Your mom told me something once: Every song ends…"_

"_Is that any reason not to enjoy the music. Yeah she tells me that all the time. But, Dad…" I gently forced the word out for the first time, "what song is ending: your time with me, or the song where you and mom miss each other every?…That song has been playing for the last eighteen years; when does that song end?"_

They came home with me. It wasn't a perfect reunion. There were the standard accusation, yelling, but as Jenny said there was also the beyond standard make-up. I guess in find my father, and seeing my mom as happy as she was to see not only Jake again, but Jenny as well…It gave me the answers that I needed.

Regan Madison Jagielski was born seven months later on April 25th. Funny, how she shares a birthday with her Aunt Jenny. Her mother signed over her rights two weeks later.

"_Hush…Shh, baby girl. Daddy's always here."_

_**Until next time, this is me signing out.**_


End file.
